If you’ve ever suffered through the re-installation of your operating system, you know (or at least you should know) that reinstalling the operating system is a last-ditch effort to correct an intractable problem. Unfortunately, a lot of users (and technicians alike) use it as a cure-all when basic troubleshooting and maintenance don’t resolve a slow computer problem.

Is Reinstallation Necessary?

Reinstallation may have been necessary – even preferred – at one time to take care of slow computer problems. In my view, it’s akin to pulling out the biggest hammer in the toolbox. I tend to avoid re-installation until I’ve exhausted all other options. I do this partially because there are a lot of settings and adjustments I’ve made to my personal computer that I simply don’t want to lose.

There is also the issue that once a fresh installation of the operating system has been carried out, you may find yourself spending an additional hour (or hours) applying every patch and service pack that’s been issued since the new OS was introduced. If your version of the OS is new, this can be relatively painless. If not, you could be applying 40-60 patches and one or more service packs to your “fresh” installation. And you also run the risk that after completing this Herculean task, you’ll still be left with a slow computer.

A better approach is to determine why the computer is behaving slowly in the first place. Computers can slow down for a variety of reasons – including lack of physical memory, lack of available disk space, and significant fragmentation on the hard disk. You could also experience problems with device drivers that have begun to misbehave. There’s also the odd possibility that a recent OS update or patch isn’t performing as expected.

Once you’ve determined that your computer has sufficient resources to run the applications you use, you can also check the network connection and the servers you’re connecting to. If your computer operates normally with its network card disabled, your problem isn’t likely to be solved by replacing the OS.

People tend to ascribe odd computer behavior to viral infections. While it’s true that viruses can certainly slow down your computer and decrease its ability to perform, a good anti-virus program will not only detect and remove offending malware, it will also prevent your computer from being impacted in the first place.

I advise people to download a registry cleaner like SpeedUpMyPC because it not only manages the registry, it also optimizes the computer for the best possible performance. If you’re not impressed with your computer’s performance, download a copy of SpeedUpMyPC and see for yourself why more than a million PC users rely on it to speed up their computer performance.

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One of the researchers at Qualsys Labs has created a proof-of-concept denial-of-service (DOS) attack that, in theory, could turn a speedy server into a slow computer virtually undetected. How? Simply by changing the way a server must respond to an incoming packet of information.

Slow DOS Attack Concept Not New

The idea of attacking a Web server one piece at a time isn’t new. In 2009, Slowloris demonstrated the “death-by-a-thousand-HTTP-requests” approach, in which partial page requests are dribbled out in a maddeningly slow fashion. After awhile, Slowloris can clog up most or all available TCP ports, effectively stopping the server in its tracks.

The latest evolution of the slow death takes a different approach. Instead of issuing partial requests, Slow Read issues full page requests but then slows down the server by reading the response ever so slowly. In addition, the attack could exploit the variable TCP packet size to create zillions of exceedingly tiny packets, which are then read oh-so-slowly. The server, which is ready to send data, must hold unread packets in a buffer, waiting for the attacker to request more data. If a number of malefactors applied this to the same server, the server would simply stop working for legitimate users as it waited to ship little, tiny data packets to the slow readers of the world.

The result: one seriously slow computer. What is the likelihood that the Internet will suddenly screech to a halt with this? Not much. Server admins can prevent this kind of attack by configuring Web servers (or any server – really – that uses TCP/IP) to refuse connections to requestors that set unreasonably small data packet sizes. They could also address the issue by timing out requests. If a page request can’t be completed (on the recipient’s side) within a certain reasonable period of time, the connection could be (and should be) dropped.

The theoretical attack, however, does underscore the role of data transmission in computer performance. Sometimes computers that are connected to a network are exceedingly slow – not because something’s wrong with them – but because something’s wrong with the computer on the other end of the connection.

That’s always something to take into consideration when trying to troubleshoot a computer problem. If the problem occurs during a network connection, disconnect the computer from the network. If performance improves, you know that the problem is related to the network connection and not to the computer in question.

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Computer time seems to run a lot more quickly than regular time does. Which is too bad, because regular time runs fast enough. With the new year on deck, I am starting to get inquiries from clients about whether or not 2012 is the year to replace their slow computer.

How Old Is Old?

For businesses, three years is getting a little long in the tooth for desktop computers, but a three-year old computer is still quite serviceable. Such a computer can generally run the latest version of the operating system and can manage most, if not all, peripheral devices. The form factor should be relatively small, so it doesn’t take up much room on the floor or on the desktop.
If a three-year-old computer is running slowly, try the usual maintenance tricks like freeing space on the hard drive, defragmenting the hard disk and performing some clean-up maintenance tasks. Don’t forget to use a registry cleaner like SpeedUpMyPC. SpeedUpMyPC not only cleans the registry, but also optimizes the computer for the kind of work you do. It makes a real performance difference!

For businesses with a four-year-old computer, replacement is a gray area. If the computer has been updated to the latest operating system and is performing well, there’s no reason to get rid of the computer based solely on its age. Many businesses choose to take their oldest machines out of the line of heavy fire and relegate them to softer duties at this point. That’s always a good option. Again, if the PC is performing slowly, give SpeedUpMyPC a shot at cleaning out the registry and optimizing the computer’s performance. If the computer isn’t running the latest operating system and there’s no real likelihood that you’ll upgrade the OS, it may make sense to upgrade the OS simply by replacing the computer.

For businesses with five year old computers, you’re more likely to benefit by replacing the computer with newer models. This is a great opportunity to preserve the performance of a new computer, by the way. Load SpeedUpMyPC onto a new computer and keep your computer is new operating condition, even as you use the computer.

For personal computers, I dispense the advice I always give: if the computer does what you need it to do and you’re not inclined to replace it, don’t. Use SpeedUpMyPC to keep your older computer running in tip-top shape and perform regular maintenance tasks as needed. Replace your computer when you want to upgrade, rather than by looking to the calendar for guidance.

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In the last several posts, I’ve talked about how you can speed up your computer by changing configuration items that you might otherwise overlook. In this post, I’ll cover a few more tips you can use to keep your computer working fast.

Consider These For Your Computer

One of the reasons your computer may be slow is that it relies on a physical hard disk to store and retrieve data. Don’t limit your definition of data to just the files you store. When you’re working on your computer, your operating system is stored on your hard disk, so every time you call on your OS to do something, you increase the risk that your computer will need to activate its hard disk to complete your request.

Mechanical items are comparatively slow, so when the hard disk gets involved, your computer will slow down. So how can you avoid this? Well, consider switching to a solid-state drive (SSD). They’re much faster than a mechanical hard disk and the all-around speed of your computer will improve remarkably.

Solid-state drives aren’t without their faults, but if speed is what you’re going for, this is definitely one area in which you can recover some otherwise “lost” time. The use of solid-state memory isn’t new. After all, that’s essentially what a USB drive is. As a replacement for mechanical hard disks, SSDs have been around for laptops for awhile. In the laptop environment, SSDs actually make a lot of sense because they’re at a lower risk of accidental damage from being dropped or mishandled.

They’re also really lightweight – a big plus when you’re lugging around a laptop! But how do they perform? In some operations – like read and write – SSDs typically outperform mechanical hard disks. They also offer marginal improvements in power consumption on laptops, though not significant enough to write home about. Another big bonus – they don’t generate a lot of heat, which can be uncomfortable for the user and can lead to early component fatigue in some configurations.

So what are the three main disadvantages of solid state drives? Cost, cost, and cost. Solid state drives are significantly more expensive than regular hard disk drives, so right now, the only opt-ins for SSDs are for those users who need the advantages of SSDs more than they need the several hundred dollars’ difference in price. The good news is that if you do opt for a solid-state drive, Windows 7 is optimized to make the best use of the device, so you can be assured that you’ll get excellent performance for your outlay.

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In my last post, I talked about how to gain some efficiency from changing the way your computer boots. Services play a certain role in how long it takes your computer to boot, so by making sure you enable only the services you really need, you can speed up your computer at boot time.

Other Places To Look For Efficiency

Making sure you’re not loading the kitchen sink is one way to pare down your startup. Disabling unused services is a good move anyway because it can reduce the potential that you can be affected by vulnerabilities. Other changes you can make can also skim a little time from boot up. These include:

Eliminating the little Windows animation at startup. This seems like a pretty innocuous little display, but believe it or not, it adds time to your startup routine. You can shut this off by opening up msconfig using the Run box, and select the Boot Tab of the System Configuration Tool. Select No GUI Boot. Your computer screen will remain black at bootup, but your computer is doing all of the things it always does – just without the entertainment.

Reduce the boot timeout value.While you’re at this point, you can reduce the boot timeout to about 5-10 seconds – more if you’re really impatient. This is the amount of time Windows displays the boot menu after a faulty shutdown/crash. If you’re paying attention, you can make a menu choice. If you’re doing something else, the computer will adopt the “Start Normally” default choice after the boot timeout value has been reached. By reducing this to some smaller value, you can recover faster after a crash or bad event. It won’t affect normal restart times.

Identify the number of processors you have. If you have a dual core processor or better, you can configure your system’s boot parameters to include this information. You’ll find this under Advanced Options. Activate the Number of processors flag and change it to the appropriate entry for your computer.

Re-evaluate your startup programs. There’s a good chance that if you just use the default startup load on your computer, you’ll end up with some programs in your startup file that you don’t really need. Restart your computer and enter msconfig into the Run box. Choose the Startup tab and take a look at what’s running. If you never use iTunes, for example, but it’s listed in your startup file, uncheck iTunes. If you need the software at some later date, it’s still there – you just start it manually – like you would any other application.

In my next post, I’ll look at a few other tricks you can use to speed up your computer at boot time.

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